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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795503">Superpowers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/awgaskarth0805/pseuds/awgaskarth0805'>awgaskarth0805</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All Time Low (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Emotional Hurt/Comfort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:13:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,987</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23795503</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/awgaskarth0805/pseuds/awgaskarth0805</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex gets a superpower, which seems to do more harm than good for him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Superpowers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a request, set in their freshman year of high school, in an alternate universe where people have superpowers.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I can’t believe you got your power before me!” Jack exclaimed as he walked out of his sixth period class with Alex.<br/>“Well, I am older, so I think it actually kind of makes sense. That said, it’s not really all that it’s hyped up to be,” Alex replied.<br/>“What do you mean? Alex, you can read people’s minds, that’s literally so cool! What am I thinking right now?” Jack asked with a huge grin.<br/>“You want to get pizza tonight at my house. We’ll do that, but can we talk about the whole superpower thing later? I really don’t have this conversation in me right now,” Alex requested.<br/>“Sure, we can use this time to talk about you and Courtney! Did you ask her out for tomorrow night like you’ve been talking about doing?” Jack continued.<br/>“Man, you’re full of questions today, aren’t you? Anyway, no, I haven’t done that yet. When I got my power, I kind of forgot about wanting to do that,” Alex explained.<br/>“Well, you’ve liked her for forever, and we have a few minutes before we have to be in history, and you know we pass her on the way there, so why don’t you do it now!” Jack exclaimed, making Alex roll his eyes.<br/>“Wouldn’t you rather have a guy’s night tomorrow night instead of me going on a date?” Alex asked, starting to sound a bit nervous.<br/>“Well, obviously the answer to that is yes, but you’ve talked about wanting to go out with her for weeks now. She’s right there, so just go get her, man!” Jack tried, pointing to Alex’s crush.<br/>“Will you stop being so annoying about everything if I go talk to her?” Alex asked back.<br/>“Sure, whatever, just go do it!” Jack exclaimed, walking away so Alex could have his space. After taking a deep breath, Alex walked up to Courtney, and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around, and her face dropped slightly when she saw that it was Alex.<br/>What does he want?<br/>Hearing this thought of Courtney’s Alex’s nerves get worse, but he knew he had to go through with asking her now that he was standing right next to her.<br/>“Hey Alex, what’s up?” she asked, trying to sound interested. <br/>“Hey, um, Courtney, I was just wondering if you’d want to, you know, catch a movie together tomorrow night?” Alex asked in a shaky voice.<br/>Why on earth would I go out with him?<br/>Alex felt his heart start to hurt as he heard her thoughts.<br/>“Oh, wow, I’m flattered, Alex, but I’m busy tomorrow, so maybe another time,” she replied with a fake smile. Before Alex could reply, he heard another one of her thoughts.<br/>More like never!<br/>“Right, well, I’ll see you around, Courtney,” Alex awkwardly said, walking away from her and towards his history classroom. When he got into the classroom, he saw that Jack was already in his seat.<br/>“So, what time are you picking her up?” Jack immediately asked once Alex sat down next to him.<br/>“I’m not,” Alex replied in a small voice.<br/>“What? Is she busy or something?” Jack continued.<br/>“That’s what she said, but certainly not what she was thinking,” Alex said, sounding hurt.<br/>“Wait, you heard her thoughts while you were talking to her?” Jack questioned.<br/>“I sure did, she told me that she was busy tomorrow night, but she thought to herself that she’d never want to go out with me,” Alex explained.<br/>“I’m sorry, man. Well, at least you know she’s never going to change her mind, so you can move on to someone else,” Jack pointed out.<br/>“I guess so, but I really liked her,” Alex replied.<br/>“I know, but now you won’t have to waste anymore time on her, and you can find someone else who’s a thousand times better!” Jack tried.<br/>“I think I would’ve preferred to just be blissfully ignorant. This power is really fucking annoying,” Alex replied.<br/>“I’m sure you’ll get used to it. You’ve only had it for a few days, I bet you’ll learn how to tune out other people’s thoughts or something,” Jack said back.<br/>“I sure fucking hope so,” Alex replied as their teacher, Mr. Harris, walked into the classroom, officially starting the lesson. <br/>Alex knew that he should be paying attention, not only was a test coming up, but this teacher always called out students when he could tell that they weren’t listening. Despite this, Alex still found himself mindlessly doodling in his notebook, where he was supposed to be taking notes on the first World War. <br/>Eventually, Alex’s teacher figured out that he wasn’t paying attention, so he decided to have some fun.<br/>“This war ending caused some big changes to take place around the world. Alex, what happened when it ended? Did America abolish slavery, or did Japan fail?” Mr. Harris asked.<br/>“Um, the Japan thing,” Alex replied, totally unsure of what was going on.<br/>“That was a trick question, neither of those things happened at that time. I recommend you follow the lecture and use that notebook to take notes, instead of drawing in it,” Mr. Harris stated, making the other kids giggle as Alex’s face grew red.<br/>“Yes sir, I’m sorry,” Alex mumbled, flipping to a clean page in his notebook.<br/>That kid isn’t going to amount to anything<br/>Alex heard this thought from Mr. Harris right before resuming his lecture, and he felt small tears start to form in his eyes. <br/>Jack saw Alex quickly trying to wipe them away and started to feel concerned for his friend. Alex looked over to Jack, then quickly looked away when he saw the worried look on Jack’s face. <br/>The rest of the lecture went on with no more interruptions, and Alex couldn’t have been happier when the dismissal bell finally rang at the end of class.<br/>“Hey, are you okay, Alex?” Jack asked as they walked out of the school, and in the direction of the student parking lot, to Alex’s car.<br/>“Not really, but I don’t want to talk about it until we get to my house,” Alex replied, his voice shaking. Knowing it would be pointless to keep trying to get Alex to talk, Jack stayed silent for the rest of the walk to the student lot. <br/>The ride to Alex’s house was quiet, the only sound being Blink-182 faintly playing from the speakers. When they got to Alex’s house, they went inside, and Alex immediately went into the living room and laid on the couch, face down.<br/>“Okay, we’re at your house now, will you please talk to me?” Jack tried, sitting on the floor in front of the couch, where Alex’s head was.<br/>“I hate having this power,” Alex replied, his voice muffled by the pillow that his face was currently shoved into.<br/>“I want to help you, but you’re going to have to be more specific than that, dude,” Jack stated.<br/>“I hate reading people’s minds and hearing their stupid thoughts,” Alex mumbled.<br/>“Okay, I can barely understand what you’re saying, let’s both sit up on the couch, and talk this thing through,” Jack decided.<br/>“No, I want to lay here in my own sadness,” Alex said as Jack tried to pull him up.<br/>“Come on, just give me, like, ten minutes, then you can go back to suffocating yourself with that pillow if you really want to,” Jack tried. With a frustrated groan, Alex slowly sat up, then Jack sat next to him.<br/>“Now that we can have a rational conversation, why do you hate your power so much? Like, what happened aside from the thing with Courtney?” Jack asked.<br/>“History class happened. I already hated Mr. Harris, but now I do even more,” Alex said, sounding upset.<br/>“I know it blows when he calls you out, but did he think something about you, too? When he’s called you out in the past, you’ve never been this bothered by it,” Jack pointed out.<br/>“Yeah, he thinks that I’m never going to amount to anything,” Alex replied, his voice cracking some as he tried not to cry for the second time of the day.<br/>“Hey, don’t worry about that. Fuck him, he’s just an asshole. Hey, he probably thinks the same thing about me,” Jack tried.<br/>“Well, having that confirmed really hurts. That, and learning that I’m the last person that my crush would want to go out with,” Alex said, small tears starting to form in his eyes.<br/>“Well, Courtney’s not right for you, and that’s not your fault, Alex. There’s going to be someone who’s really perfect for you, and when you find that person, you’ll forget all about Courtney,” Jack assured, wrapping an arm around Alex’s shoulders.<br/>“It’s not even just the two of them. I can hear people’s thoughts without them knowing; what if I learn that all of my friends don’t really like me?” Alex asked, starting to cry more. Jack hugged Alex closer to him and rubbed Alex’s back as he continued to cry.<br/>“First of all, you’re my best friend and always will be, so please don’t think otherwise about that. Second, your friends and family aren’t pretending to like you, dude, I can promise you that,” Jack assured.<br/>“But, I can hear things that people don’t know I can. What if I learn about all of my bad traits from this? I don’t want to know that!” Alex exclaimed.<br/>“Alex, just because a stuck-up girl and a dick teacher had bad thoughts about you doesn’t mean that everyone will. Besides, I bet you’re going to fall in love with your power,” Jack continued.<br/>“Please, what good will this power really do for me?” Alex asked back.<br/>“Well, there’s a lot of things! This could help you cheat on tests! Just read the thoughts of the smartest kid in class during the test, and you’ll never have to study again!” Jack exclaimed.<br/>“I guess that’s a good point,” Alex replied, wiping away some tears.<br/>“Exactly! Next time you like a girl, you can read her mind to figure out exactly what she’s looking for in a guy and stuff, and you can plan out the perfect first date for the two of you!” Jack continued.<br/>“That’s a good point, too!” Alex said back, starting to smile some.<br/>“See, this power is going to be great for you! I know it’s all weird right now, but you’ll get used to it. You’ll learn how to tune out thoughts that you don’t want to hear, and you’ll figure out how to use this power in ways to benefit you. Until it gets easier, I’ll be right by your side, helping you figure all of this out,” Jack promised, as they exchanged a smile.<br/>“That’s definitely going to make all of this so much easier. Thank you, Jack, you’re really good at helping people with their problems,” Alex pointed out.<br/>“What? I’ve always been really shitty at that,” Jack replied with a laugh.<br/>“Wait, being an advice-giver is a power, what if that’s yours?” Alex asked back.<br/>“Only one way to know, I’ll look at the powers app on my phone,” Jack replied, pulling out his phone, and opening up the correct app.<br/>“Shit, you’re right, my power is advice-giving!” Jack exclaimed with a smile.<br/>“That’s awesome, congratulations, man!” Alex replied.<br/>“I think I’m going to like this power,” Jack said, turning off his phone.<br/>“It suits you well. See, I told you tat you just had to be patient, and then your power would show itself!” Alex continued.<br/>“I feel like our powers compliment each other well,” Jack stated.<br/>“Just like we do for each other,” Alex replied, making them both smile. Alex knew it would take some adjusting to really get used to his new power, but he also knew that with Jack by his side, that everything would work out and be okay.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hey guys, this is a request for someone on here! I've never written anything like this before, and was a bit nervous and hesitant about it, since everything I've written has taken place in the "real world", but I decided to give this a try! Hopefully, the requester of this likes it, even though it's probably not the greatest thing I've ever written. I currently have two more requests to finish up and post, then I'll be out again! That said, please give me more, I love writing your ideas! Also, my semester is officially over next week, and I think I'm going to try to develop a posting schedule, since I won't have to write around assignments anymore! I hope you all enjoyed this, and I'm looking forward to writing more for you guys! Lots of love, Liv.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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